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The ‘bias machine’: How Google tells you what you want to hear

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“We’re at the mercy of Google.” Undecided voters in the US who turn to Google may see dramatically different views of the world – even when they’re asking the exact same question.

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Cathy O'Neil on the humans behind algorithms

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Cathy O'Neil on the humans behind algorithms

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It can be easy to simply accept algorithms as indisputable mathematic truths. After all, who wants to spend their spare time deconstructing complex equations? But make no mistake: algorithms are limited tools for understanding the world, frequently as flawed and biased as the humans who create and interpret them. In this brief animation, which was adapted from a 2017 presentation at the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) in London, the US data scientist Cathy O'Neil, author of Weapons of Math Destruction (2016), argues that algorithms can be useful tools when thoughtfully deployed. However, their newfound ubiquity and massive power calls for ethical conduct from modellers, regulation and oversight by policymakers, and a more skeptical, mathematics-literate public.

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Algorithms are opinions, not truth machines, and demand the application of ethics | Aeon Videos

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Algorithms are opinions, not truth machines, and demand the application of ethics

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Emilio Ferrara on building in bias to algorithms

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Emilio Ferrara on building in bias to algorithms

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Eliminating bias in AI may be impossible – a computer scientist explains how to tame it instead

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Creating bias-free AI systems is easier said than done. A computer scientist explains how controlling bias could lead to fairer AI.

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I can discuss why we tend to anthropomorphize AI, and how this affects our relationship with it

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TE4 A convincing illusion? | Class presentation (25-26)

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Chester Colelay on 'God being everywhere'

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Chester Colelay on 'God being everywhere'

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Nicolle Okoren with photographs by Trevor Christensen

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They took part in Apache ceremonies. Their schools expelled them for satanic activities

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Educators on the Fort Apache Reservation have repeatedly condemned teens for participating in a sacred dance. It follows a pattern of Christian discipline begun more than a century ago

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At the Olympics, athletes show guts, glory – and a lot of ink, including tattoos that profess their faith

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One biblical verse bans tattoos, but the full story of Christianity’s relationship with body modification is more complicated.

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RE2 The sacred and the secular | Guidance notes (25-26)

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In some movies, religion hits viewers over the head - including films that take home the industry's biggest prizes. No one could miss religion's importance in " The Exorcist" or " Jesus Christ Superstar," both nominated for Oscars 50 years ago. Martin Scorsese, whose "Killers of the Flower Moon" is up for 10 at the 2024 Academy Awards, is working on a new project on the life of Jesus.

Anyone can find a religious meaning in "Kundun," Scorsese's epic about the Dalai Lama's youth, or " Fiddler on the Roof," the story of life in a Russian Jewish shtetl at the turn of the 20th century. Cinematic Christ figures are a dime a dozen.

But for scholars of religion and popular culture like myself, movies that engage religion less directly are often more intriguing.

Free from illusion

Take the hugely influential science fiction franchise " The Matrix." Depicting characters caught in a diabolical computer simulation, held prisoner to AI, the film feels particularly timely in 2024.

Seeing past illusions to a deeper cosmic reality, as the film's protagonists must do, is of course a theme of many faiths. "The Matrix" is peppered with many other allusions to religion and mythology. Main character Neo, referred to as "the One," is killed and resurrected. A hacker even tells him, "You're my savior, man, my own personal Jesus Christ." One central character is named Trinity. Another is called Morpheus, after the Greek god of dreams.

More specifically, religion scholars see explicit themes of Gnosticism, a variant of Christianity that flourished during the faith's first few centuries. A central focus of Gnostic texts is attaining liberation from worldly illusion through direct inner knowledge of truth. Its teachings include stark dualism - light vs. dark, mind vs. body, good vs. evil - and belief in a hidden God operating in a hostile cosmos, both of which have analogues in "The Matrix."

Buddhist themes are also unmistakable. The film begins with Neo waking up, both literally and figuratively, as he discovers the truth: Machines have trapped humanity in pods to harvest their energy. The world in which humans believe they are living is actually "the matrix," an illusory world created to distract them.

"Buddha" means " awakened one," and many viewers have drawn comparisons between Keanu Reeves' character's journey and Buddhism. Once awakened to reality, Neo is no longer bound to the illusions of ignorance and desire. Just as importantly, he must help other humans awaken and escape the cycle of suffering.

Spirits on screen

Even apart from specific allusions like these, cinema shares something important with religion.

Religion scholar R. Brent Rodriquez-Plate argues that films can function something like religions in the lives of their audiences, "playing God" by creating imaginary worlds - worlds that may make viewers see their real lives in a different light.

That power is nowhere more evident than in animated films, which create vivid realms that live action can only dream of. In films like " Spirited Away" and " Howl's Moving Castle," legendary anime director Hayao Miyazaki creates his own mythic worlds populated with fanciful " yōkai ": creatures that are inspired by Japanese legends but not quite Shinto or Buddhist.

Many of Miyazaki's films also include spirits that inhabit inanimate objects, which he associates with Japanese tradition. "In my grandparents' time ... it was believed that spirits (kami) existed everywhere - in trees, rivers, insects, wells, anything," he once said. "My own religion, if you can call it that, has no practice, no Bible, no saints, only a desire to keep certain places and my own self as pure and holy as possible."

" Princess Mononoke," Miyazaki's 1997 film set in medieval Japan, tells the story of a young prince drawn into an epic struggle between forest gods and humans who exploit natural resources. It's a challenge religions have often ignored but are increasingly trying to engage: how to live responsibly in the natural world.

While the movie has an environmental message, it avoids oversimplifying the struggle to "good nature" besieged by "bad humans." San, a human girl who leads an army of wolves, tries to kill the prince, while Iron Town provides support for lepers and outcasts, even as it degrades the environment.

Birth and rebirth - and groundhogs

What about comedy, though? Can a religious film be funny? Could a romantic comedy have religious overtones?

Each February, many Americans celebrate Groundhog Day, waiting to see if the famous Punxsutawney Phil will see his shadow. But for some, Feb. 2 is a day to celebrate " Groundhog Day" - the film about the moral evolution of an arrogant Pittsburgh weatherman sent to report on the groundhog but forced to live the same day over and over again until he gets it right.

Given "Groundhog Day's" cult-classic status, it evidently speaks to followers of many religions and none. But it's hard to think of a film that better captures the concept of samsara: the Sanskrit term for the tedious human condition, with its endless cycles of birth and rebirth. Helping people find release from samsara is central to both Hinduism and Buddhism. Phil, the weatherman stuck reliving Feb. 2 over and over, is caught on such a treadmill.

Only by gradually transforming himself into a more virtuous person - performing acts of merit among the people of Punxsutawney - does he finally escape from the nightmare of recurring Groundhog Days.

Director Harold Ramis was brought up Jewish but became a Buddhist who carried a laminated card, " The 5 Minute Buddhist ": a kind of cheat sheet of core ideas of Buddhism. So it's not surprising to find them in his movie.

One is "pratītyasamutpāda," another Sanskrit term: the idea that everything in the cosmos is linked by causal chains. All causes and effects are connected; nothing stands wholly apart on its own. By the end of "Groundhog Day," the prideful Phil has fully connected with people in the quaint Pennsylvania village - and won his love, Rita - having learned how his own well-being depends on the well-being of everyone around him.

Close to awe

There's one more way to think about religion in film. Apart from specific spiritual themes, a powerful movie can offer an almost religious experience.

Nathaniel Dorsky, an experimental filmmaker influenced by Buddhism, writes of cinema as a devotional experience. The act of sitting in darkness, watching an illuminated world flicker by, Dorsky says, may be as close to approaching the transcendent as many of us will come - getting a glimpse of something beyond our normal range of experience.

Of course, all these films can be enjoyed fully without reading them on this religious level. Some movie fans would object that these interpretations spoil the fun, and they may have a point. But part of the excitement of studying religion in popular culture is to be aware of its many permutations, hidden in plain view.

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Reeling religion: From anime and sci-fi to rom-coms, films are full of faith in unexpected places

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Plenty of movies have explicitly religious themes, but some of the most interesting examples of faith or transcendence on screen are much more subtle.

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Why the Olympic Games are a ‘civil religious’ ceremony with a global congregation

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Sporting events form a vital space where Americans display their ‘civil religious devotion,’ according to a scholar of religion and sports.

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I understand how sacred and secular aspects of society overlap extensively, and evaluate the implications of this

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RE2 The sacred and the secular | Class presentation (25-26)

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PO5 Power tends to corrup | Student case-studies (25-26)

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When does a political movement become a cult?

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Numerous contemporary politicians have adherents who worship them like cult leaders. Where do you draw the line between cult and political partisanship?

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I understand how viewing political leaders as infallible can lead to significant ethical implications

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PO5 Power tends to corrupt | Class presentation (25-26)

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Cultural Survival on the preservation of indigenous languages

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Cultural Survival on the preservation of indigenous languages

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The Language of the Earth: How Indigenous Languages Safeguard Biodiversity and Cultivate Possible Futures amid Climate Change

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Indigenous languages are more than forms of communication. They are reservoirs of Traditional Knowledge generated and sustained by the Earth, expressed through a Peoples’ cultural, linguistic, and ecological practices and reflecting an interdependence between human wisdom and the natural world. They are living, co-evolving knowledge that transcend generations and play a fundamental role in protecting socio-biodiversity and addressing climate change.

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UNESCO on the preservation of indigenous languages

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UNESCO on the preservation of indigenous languages

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Multilingual education, the bet to preserve indigenous languages and justice

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The premiere of the film The Woman of Stars and Mountains, about the case of Rita Patiño, took place in Mexico on the International Mother Language Day, with UNESCO.

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Aasl eagh (n.): A liqueur made only for drinking at the end of a revoltingly long bottle party when all the drinkable drink has been drunk.

Aboyne (vb.): To beat an expert at a game of skill by playing so appallingly that none of his clever tactics or strategies are of any use to him.

Abruzzo (n.): The worn patch of ground under a swing.
(pl. n.): The odd twinges you get in parts of your body when you scratch other parts. (adj.): The way people stand when examining other people's bookshelves.

Aigburth (n.): Any piece of readily identifiable anatomy found amongst cooked meat. Aith (n.): The single bristle that sticks out sideways on a cheap paintbrush.

Albacete (n.): A single surprisingly long hair growing in the middle of nowhere.

Alcoy (adj.): Wanting to be bullied into having another drink.

Amlwch (n.): A British Rail sandwich which has been kept soft by being regularly washed and resealed in clingfilm.
Ampus (n.): A lurid bruise which you can't remember getting.

Anantnag (vb.): (Eskimo term) To bang your thumbs between the oars when rowing.

Balemartine (n.): The look which says, 'Stop talking to that woman at once.'

Bathel (vb.): To pretend to have read the book under discussion when in fact you've only seen the TV series.

Baughurst (n.): That kind of large fierce ugly woman who owns a small fierce ugly dog.

Bauple (n.): An indeterminate pustule which could be either a spot or a bite.

Beaulieu Hill (n.): The optimum vantage point from which to view people undressing in the bedroom across the street.

Belding (n.): The technical name for a stallion after its first ball has been cut off. Any notice which reads 'Beware of the Belding' should be taken very, very seriously.

Belper (n.): A knob of someone else's chewing gum which you unexpectedly find your hand resting on under the passenger seat of your car or on somebody's thigh under their skirt.

Bickerstaffe (n.): The person in an office that everyone whinges about in the pub. Many large corporations deliberately employ bickerstaffes in each department.

Bodmin (n.): That irrational and inevitable discrepancy between the amount pooled and the amount needed when a large group of people try to pay a bill together after a meal.

Boscastle (n.): The huge pyramid of tin cans placed just inside the entrance to a supermarket. Boinka (n.): The noise through the wall which tells you that the people next door enjoy a better sex life than you do.

Boolteens (pl. n.): The small scattering of foreign coins and halfpennies which inhabit dressing tables. Since they are never used and never thrown away boolteens account for a significant drain on the world's money supply.

Brindle (vb.): To remember suddenly where it is you're meant to be going after you've already been driving for ten minutes.

Clenchwarton (n.): (Archaic) One who assists an exorcist by squeezing whichever part of the possessed the exorcist deems useful.

Climpy (adj.): Allowing yourself to be persuaded to do something and pretending to be reluctant.

Cloates Point (n.): The precise instant at which scrambled eggs are ready.

Clun (n.): A leg which has gone to sleep and has to be hauled around after you.

Clunes (pl. n.): People who just won't go.

Cong (n.): Strange-shaped metal utensil found at the back of the saucepan cupboard. Many authorities believe that congs provide conclusive proof of the exstence of a now extinct form of yellow vegetable which the Victorians used to boil mercilessly.

Cromarty (n.): The brittle sludge which clings to the top of ketchup bottles and plastic tomatoes in nasty cafés.

Dalderby (n.): A letter to the editor made meaningless because it refers to a previous letter you didn't read. (See A.H. Hedgehope, July 3rd.)
Dalmilling (ptcl. vb.): Continually making small talk to someone who is trying to read a book. Deal (n.): The gummy substance found between damp toes.
(vb.): To hold out hope for a better invitation until the last minute.

Dalfibble (vb.): To spend large swathes of your life looking for car keys.

Dewlish (adj.): (Of the hands and feet.) Prunelike after an overlong bath.
Dinder (vb.): To nod thoughtfully while someone gives you a long and complex set of directions which you know you're never going to remember.

Dipple (vb.): To try to remove a sticky something from one hand with the other, thus causing it to get stuck to the other hand and eventually to anything else you try to remove it with.

Dobwalls (pl. n.): The now hard-boiled bits of nastiness which have to be prised off crockery by hand after it has been through a dishwasher.

Dorchester (n.): Someone else's throaty cough which obscures the crucial part of the rather amusing remark you've just made.

Duddo (n.): The most deformed potato in any given collection of potatoes.

Draffan (n.): An infuriating person who always manages to look much more dashing than anyone else by turning up unshaven and hungover at a formal party.

Dufton (n.): The last page of a document that you always leave face down in the photocopier and have to go and retrieve later.
Duleek (n.): Sudden realization, as you lie in bed waiting for the alarm to go off, that it should have gone off an hour ago.

Dumboyne (n.): The realization that the train you have patiently watched pulling out of the station was the one you were meant to be on.

Dunino (n.): Someone who always wants to do whatever you want to do.

Dunster (n.): A small child hired to bounce at dawn on the occupants of the spare bedroom in order to save on tea and alarm clocks.

Duntish (adj.): Mentally incapacitated by a severe hangover.

Eakring (ptcpl. vb.): Wondering what to do next when you've just stormed out of something.

East Wittering(ptcpl. vb.): The same as West Wittering, only it's you they're trying to get away from.

Ely (n.): The first, tiniest inkling that something, somewhere, has gone terribly wrong.

Farnham (n.): The feeling you get at about four o'clock in the afternoon when you haven't got enough done. Ferfer (n.): One who is very excited that they've had a better idea than the one you've just suggested. Foffarty (adj.): Unable to find the right moment to leave. (vb.): To queue-jump very discreetly by working one's way up the line without being spotted doing so. (n.): (Archaic) The right of the lord of the manor to molest dwarfs on their birthdays.(n.): The small awkward-shaped piece of cheese which remains after grating a large regular-shaped piece of chesse, and which enables you to grate your fingers.

Finuge (vb.): In any division of foodstuffs equally between several people, to give yourself the extra slice left over.

Fiunary (n.): The safe place you put something and forget where it was.

Fladderbister (n.): That part of a raincoat which trails out of a car after you've closed the door on it.

Framlingham (n.): A kind of burglar alarm in common usage. It is cunningly designed so that it can ring at full volume in the street without apparently disturbing anyone. Other types of framlinghams are burglar alarms fitted to business premises in residential areas, which go off as a matter of regular routine at 5.31 p.m. on a Friday evening and do not get turned off till 9.20 a.m. on Monday morning. (adj.): The shade of green which is supposed to make you feel comfortable in hospitals, industrious in schools and uneasy in police stations. (vb.): To steal things not worth the bother of stealing. One steals cars, money and silver. Book matches, airline eyepatches an individual pots of Trust House Forte apricot jam are merely fremantled (n.): The noise made by a lightbulb that has just shone its last. (n.): A paragraph that you get stuck on in a book. The more you read it, the less it means to you. (n.): Measure. The minimum time it is necessary to spend frowning in deep concentration at each picture in an art gallery in order that everyone else doesn't think you're a complete moron. (pl.n.): The lecherous looks exchanged beween sixteen-year-olds at a party given by someone's parents. (ptcpl.vb.): Pretending not to be in when the carol-singers come round.

Gaffney (n.): Someone who deliberately misunderstands things for, he hopes, humorous effect.

Galashiels (pl.n): A form of particularly long sparse sideburns which are part of the mandatory turnout of British Rail guards.

Gammersgill (n.): Embarrassed stammer you emit when a voice answers the phone and you realise that you haven't the faintest recollection of who it is you've just rung.

Garrow (n.): Narrow wiggly furrow left after pulling a hair off a painted surface.

Gartness (n.): The ability to say 'No, there's absolutely nothing the matter, what could possibly be the matter? And anyway I don't want to discuss it,' without moving your lips.

Gallipolli (adj.): Of the behaviour of a bottom lip trying to spit out mouthwash after an injection at the dentist. Hence, loose, floppy, useless. 'She went all gallipoli in his arms' - Noel Coward

Garvock (n.): The action of putting your finger in your cheek and flicking it out with a 'pock' noise.

Gastard (n.): Useful specially new-coined word for an illegitimate child (in order to distinguish it from someone who merely carves you up on the motorway, etc.).

Ghent (adj.): Descriptive of the mood indicated by cartoonists by drawing a character's mouth as a wavy line.

Gignog (n.): Someone who, through the injudicious application of alcohol, is now a great deal less funny than he thinks he is.

Gildersome (adj.): Descriptive of a joke someone tells you which starts well, but which becomes so embellished in the telling that you start to weary of it after scarcely half an hour.

Gilgit (n.): Hidden sharply pointed object which stabs you in the cuticle when you reach into a small pot.

Gilling (n.): The warm tingling you get in your feet when having a really good widdle.

Gipping (ptcpl.vb.): The fish-like opening and closing of the jaws seen amongst people who have recently been to the dentist and are puzzled as to whether their teeth have been put back the right way up.
(adj.): Blank, sly and faintly embarrassed. Pertaining to the expression seen on the face of someone who has clearly forgotten your name.

Gonnabarn (n.): An afternoon wasted on watching an old movie on TV.

Goole (n.): The puddle on the bar into which the barman puts your change.

Greeley (n.): Someone who continually annoys you by continually apologizing for annoying you.

Gress (vb.): (Rare) To stick to the point during a family argument.

Gribun (n.): The person in a crisis who can always be relied on to make a good anecdote out of it.

Gulberwick (n.): The small particle that you always think you've got stuck at the back of your throat after you've been sick.

Harlosh (vb.): To redistribute the hot water in a bath.

Hepple (vb.): To sculpt the contents of a sugar bowl.

Hever (n.): The panic caused by half-hearing the Tannoy in an airport.

High Limerigg (n.): The topmost tread of a staircase which disappears when you're climbing the stairs in darkness.

Hobarris (n.): (Medical) A sperm which carries a high risk of becoming a bank manager.

Hosmer (vb.): (Of a TV newsreader) To continue to stare impassively into the camera when it should have already switched to the sports report.(n.): The aggressiveness with which a shop assistant sells you any piece of high technology which they don't understand themselves.

Huna (n.): The result of coming to the wrong decision.

Jofane (adj.): In breach of the laws of joke telling, e.g. giving away the punchline in advance.

Kalami (n.): The ancient Eastern art of being able to fold road maps properly.

Keele (n.): The horrible smell caused by washing ashtrays.

Kelling (ptcpl. vb.): The action of looking for something all over again in the places you've already looked.

Kettleness (adj.): The quality of not being able to pee while being watched.

Kirby (n.): Small but repulsive piece of food prominently attached to a person's face or clothing.

Lemvig (n.): A person who can be relied upon to be doing worse than you.

Liniclate (adj.): All stiff and achey in the morning and trying to remember why.

Lulworth (n.): Measure of conversation. A lulworth defines the amount of the length, loudness and embarrassment of a statement you make when everyone else in the room unaccountably stops talking at the same moment.

Macroy (n.): An authoritative, confident opinion based on one you read in a newspaper. Millinocket (n.): The thing that rattles around inside an aerosol can.

Mimbridge (n.): That which two very boring people have in common which enables you to get away from them.

Motspur (n.): The fourth wheel of a supermarket trolley which looks identical to the other three but renders the trolley completely uncontrollable.

Mugeary (n.): (Medical) The substance from which the unpleasant little yellow globules in the corners of a sleepy person's eyes are made.

Nad (n.): Measure defined as the distance between a driver's out-stretched fingertips and the ticket machine in an automatic car-park. 1 nad = 18.4 cm. Namber (vb.): To hang around the table being too shy to sit next to the person you really want to.

Naugatuck (n.): A plastic sachet containing shampoo, polyfilla, etc., which it is impossible to open except by biting off the corners.

Nindigully (n.): One who constantly needs to be re-persuaded of something they've already agreed to.

Noak Hoak (n.): A driver who indicated left and turns right.

Nubbock (n.): The kind of person who has to leave before a party can relax and enjoy itself.

Nupend (n.): The amount of small change found in the lining of an old jacket which just saves your bacon.

Ozark (n.): One who offers to help after all the work has been done.

Papple (vb.): To do what babies do to soup with their spoons.

Perranzabuloe (n.): One of those spray things used to wet ironing with.

Peterculter (n.): Someone you don't want to be friends with who rings you up at eight-monthly intervals and suggests you get together soon.
Plymouth (vb.): To relate an amusing story to someone without remembering that it was they who told it to you in the first place.

Plumgarths (pl.n.): The corrugations on the ankles caused by wearing tight socks.

Poges (pl.n.): The lumps of dry powder that remain after cooking a packet of soup.

Polyphant (n.): The mythical beast -- part bird, part snake, part jam stain -- which invariably wins children's painting competitions in the 5-7 age group.

Potarch (n.): The eldest male in a soap opera family.

Ravenna (n.): Poetic term for the cleavage in a workman's bottom that peeks above the top of his trousers.

Rhymney (n.): That part of a song lyric which you suddenly discover you've been mishearing for years.

Rimbey (n.): The particularly impressive throw of a frisbee which causes it to be lost.

Risplith (n.): The burst of applause which greets the sound of a plate smashing in a canteen.

Rochester (n.): One who is able to gain occupation of the armrests on both sides of their cinema or aircraft seat.

Royston (n.): The man behind you in church who sings with terrific gusto almost three-quarters of a tone off the note.

Rudge (n.): An unjust criticism of your ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend.

Satterthwaite (vb.): To spray the person you are talking to with half-chewed breadcrumbs or small pieces of whitebait. (n.): A joke told my someone who completely misjudges the temperament of the person to whom it is told.(n.): A person who looks around them when talking to you, to see if there's anyone more interesting about.

Scraptoft (n.): The absurd flap of hair a vain and balding man grows long above one ear to comb it plastered over the top of his head to the other ear. (n.): Something that hits the window as a result of a violent sneeze.

Sheepy Magna (n.): One who emerges unexpectedly from the wrong bedroom in the morning.

Shimpling (ptcpl. vb.): Lying about the state of your life in order to cheer up your parents.

Shirmers (pl. n.): Tall young men who stand around smiling at weddings as if to suggest that they know the bride rather well.

Sigglesthorne (n.): Anything used in lieu of a toothpick.

Silloth (n.): Something that was sticky, and is now furry, found on the carpet under the sofa on the morning after a party.

Skagway (n.): Sudden outbreak of cones on a motorway.
Skibbereen (n.): The noise made by a sunburned thigh leaving a plastic chair.

Slubbery (n.): The gooey drips of wax that dribble down the sides of a candle.

Slumbay (n.): The cigarette end someone discovers in the mouthful of lager they have just swigged from a can at the end of a party.

Sneem (n.): Particular kind of frozen smile bestowed on a small child by a parent in mixed company when question, 'Mummy, what's this?' appear to require the answer, 'Er... it's a rubber johnny, darling.'

Soller (vb.): To break something in two while testing if you glued it together properly.

Sompting (n.): The practice of dribbling involuntarily into one's own pillow.

Spreakley (adj.): Irritatingly cheerful in the morning.

Spurger (n.): One who in answer to the question 'How are you?' actually tells you.

Stibbard (n.): The invisible brake pedal on the passenger's side of the car.

Stoke Poges (n.): The tapping movements of an index finger on glass made by a person futilely attempting to communicate with either a tropical fish or a Post Office clerk.

Stody (n.): A small drink which someone nurses for hours so they can stay in the pub.

Stowting (ptcpl. vb.): Feeling a pregnant woman's tummy.

Strelley (n.): Long strip of paper or tape which has got tangled round the wheel of something.

Sturry (n.): A token run. Pedestrians who have chosen to cross a road immediately in front of an approaching vehicle generally give a little wave and break into a sturry. This gives the impression of hurrying without having any practical effect on their speed whatsoever.

Stutton (n.): Tiny melted plastic nodule which fails to help fasten a duvet cover.

Suckley Knowl (n.): A plumber's assistant who never knows where the actual plumber is.

Surby (adj.): Insolently polite, as of policemen who have stopped a motorist.

Sutton and Cheam (ns.): Sutton and Cheam are the two kinds of dirt into which all dirt is divided. 'Sutton' is the dark sort that always gets on to light-coloured things, and 'cheam' the light-coloured sort that always clings on to dark items. Anyone who has ever found Marmite stains on a dress-shirt, or seagull goo on a dinner jacket a) knows all about sutton and cheam, and b) is going to some very curious dinner parties.

Swaffham Bulbeck (n.): An entire picnic lunchtime spent fighting off wasps.

Tidpit (n.): The corner of a toenail from which satisfying little black spots may be sprung.

Timble (vb.): (Of small nasty children) To fall over very gently, look around to see who's about, and then yell blue murder.

Trunch (n.): Instinctive resentment of people younger than you.

Tumby (n.): The involuntary abdominal gurgling which fills the silence following someone else's intimate personal revelation.

West Wittering (ptcpl. vb.): The uncontrollable twitching which breaks out when you're trying to get away from the most boring person at a party.

Wigan (n.): If, when talking to someone you know only has one leg, you're trying to treat them perfectly casually and normally, but find to your horror that your conversation is liberally studded with references to (a) Long John Silver, (b) Hopalong Cassidy, (c) the Hokey Cokey, (d) 'putting your foot in it', (e) 'the last leg of the UEFA competition', you are said to have committed a wigan.

Willimantic (adj.): Of a person whose heart is in the wrong place (i.e. between their legs).

Woking(ptcpl. vb.): Standing in the kitchen wondering what you came in here for.

Worksop (n.): A person who never actually gets round to doing anything because he spends all his time writing out lists headed 'Things To Do (Urgent)'.

Zagreb (n.): A stranger who suddenly clutches an intimate part of your body and then pretends they did it to prevent themselves fall

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Aasl eagh (n.): A liqueur made only for drinking at the end of a revoltingly long bottle party when all the drinkable drink has been drunk. Aboyne (vb.): To beat an expert at a game of skill by playing so appallingly that none of his clever tactics or strategies are of any use to him.

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Erin McKean: Go ahead, make up new words!

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Kory Stamper on descriptivism and prescriptivism

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Kory Stamper on descriptivism and prescriptivism

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I can evaluate the extent to which the development of language can - and should - be controlled over time

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LA2 Big branches proliferating | Class presentation (25-26)

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(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

David Shorter still remembers a haunting interaction he had with Andrea Smith in the late 1990s after she helped disband a Native studies reading group he was in while they were in graduate school at UC Santa Cruz.

Smith, who said she was Cherokee, told Shorter and others that they should not have a reading group in which there were people who were not Native. Her word as a Native woman carried weight, and the group fell apart.

For the record:

An earlier version of this article indicated Andrea Smith pushed to disband a Native studies reading group because it had no Native members. The group did have Native members but was not exclusive to them.

Soon after, Shorter saw Smith walking across a parking lot outside Oakes College and asked about her opposition to the reading group, saying he thought good work could be done by allies.

"She was really upset I had bothered her. She dismissed me with a literal wave of her hand," said Shorter, now a professor at UCLA. "She said, 'I don't have time to explain to you what it means to be Native. I have to go take care of people back home.'"

Several years would go by before Smith's claims about having Native American heritage would be called into doubt.

Now, after those allegations swirled for more than 15 years, Smith will resign from her position as a professor of ethnic studies at UC Riverside, according to a separation agreement with the university.

"This is good news but late news," Shorter said, noting that Smith's identity as a Cherokee woman was initially disputed by Cherokee Nation officials in 2007. "But this is the academic world; things take a really long time to do legally."

Smith's resignation comes after 13 professors at UC Riverside filed a complaint against her last year alleging she made "fraudulent claims to Native American identity," violating the school's policy.

Smith "denies and disputes" the allegations against her, according to the separation agreement between her and the university, but the two sides agreed to settle to avoid costly litigation.

Smith did not respond to requests for comment.

The agreement was signed earlier this year and was first reported this month. UC Riverside confirmed Smith's resignation but said no investigation was done into the allegations against her.

"The parties have reached the mutual decision to end their employment relationship on the terms and conditions outlined in this agreement," the separation agreement reads.

"Professor Smith agrees to not make any affirmative claims of Native American heritage in connection with her University work for the duration of her University employment. However, if asked about her heritage in connection with her University work, Professor Smith is permitted to disclose her opinion on her Native American heritage," the agreement reads.

As part of the separation agreement, Smith will continue until August 2024 as a full-time professor. She will then be eligible to receive all her retirement benefits and will retain the title of professor emeritus.

To tribal officials and others who doubted her Native American ancestry, Smith had been hiding in plain sight for years. The professor, currently on sabbatical, has written numerous books about Native issues. She even wrote in a 1991 essay that New Age white "feminists" were co-opting and taking advantage of Native spirituality for profit.

But in 2007, Cherokee Nation officials had already begun to ask about her identity after realizing she was not enrolled with the tribe, according to the New York Times Magazine.

Articles about her alleged misrepresentation popped up as early as 2008. That same year she got a job teaching at UC Riverside.

Questions were raised again in 2015 after the scandal surrounding Rachel Dolezal, an activist and college instructor accused of trying to pass as a Black woman.

"Meet the Native American Rachel Dolezal," read the headline of a Daily Beast story about Smith published that year.

At the time, UC Riverside defended Smith, telling the New York Times Magazine that it "does not comment on the ethnic backgrounds of specific employees."

The magazine story, published in 2021, reignited interest in Smith's background, leading to the 2022 complaint filed by professors at UC Riverside.

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UC Riverside professor accused of faking Native American heritage will resign

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After questions about her claimed Native American heritage swirled for more than 15 years, UC Riverside professor Andrea Smith will resign.

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After decades of hiding their identities, Indigenous leaders say communities are now experiencing a "new identity crisis" as more and more Canadians falsely and fraudulently claim Indigenous ancestry for personal gain.

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"Today it's a different crisis. We are struggling with people who are trying to be us," Scott McLeod, the Chief of the Ontario-based Nipissing First Nation said this week while speaking at the two-day Indigenous Identify Fraud Summit in Winnipeg.

McLeod says when growing up on his reserve, he saw countless examples of community members and Elders hiding their heritage out of fear of what could happen to them if they publicly shared their culture, language or ceremonies.

"Back in the '60s and '70s we had identity issues because we were trying to find our own identity after centuries of suppression and oppression, and being outlawed to practice who we were as a people," McLeod said.

"Growing up, elders were very reluctant to teach the traditional ways to the young people because of the bad things that were happening in our communities. There were times when you could go to jail for having ceremony, for speaking the language, for doing the things we knew to be our identity."

The summit in Winnipeg, which is being co-hosted by the Manitoba Métis Federation (MMF) and the Chiefs of Ontario (COO) saw hundreds of First Nations, Métis and Inuit representatives gather for two days of talks surrounding Indigenous identity fraud.

A University of Saskatchewan 2022 report used the term "Indigenous identity fraudster" to define those who make "false claims to Indigenous identity, usually for personal material advantage," and the report says the issue is growing in Canada, as people look for opportunities by claiming false Indigenous identities.

Dr. Pam Palmater, a well-known First Nations lawyer and activist referred to those who use fake claims of Indigenous identity as "pretendians," and said it is an issue that needs to be combated with a lot more urgency, because of how it harms legitimate Indigenous people and communities.

"If you just think about this on an individual level, they're taking jobs, they're taking opportunities, they're taking student support, procurement agreements, and they are taking over our voices in the media," Palmater said.

"The reason why individual pretendians are also so problematic is because they get into positions of power as decision makers and that can change our very culture. I don't want them to turn my culture into something that is absolutely isn't."

She added she has been attacked online for years over her stance on what she calls "pretendians," but said it is important to keep combating Indigenous identity theft.

"There are some that say 'why question people? Why not just let anyone in?' But as nations we do have citizen rules like any other nations in the world, and we have borders within our nations," Palmater said.

"It's a threat to our sovereignty, our jurisdiction, our law-making ability, our authority and our economy."

The 2022 University of Saskatchewan report also states that Indigenous identity theft is a growing problem in Canadian universities, which often rely on self-identification, which can lead to false claims of Indigenous ancestry by both students and faculty members.

Palmater said she and other would like to see an end to self-identification as quickly as possible, because students are using it to make false identity claims and receive benefits and scholarships meant for Indigenous people.

"I understand why we started out with self-identification, because we didn't want to be in a process where we were creating trauma against our own people," she said. "But self-identification has gotten us into this mess.

"We need to very quickly get out of self-identification."

- Dave Baxter is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of the Winnipeg Sun. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.

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Self-identification created a mess and it needs to stop, says Palmater

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After decades of hiding identities, communities are now experiencing a "new identity crisis" as Canadians falsely claim Indigenous ancestry.

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The United Nations estimate that more than 370 million people spread across at least 70 different countries constitute the world's 'indigenous societies'. This clearly presents us with problems if we want to avoid falling into the trap of generalizing and simplifying the peoples, and the knowledge, that is found within them.

It gets more difficult: indigenous societies are often remote and isolated from one another and their development has occurred relatively independently, so their identities are far more varied than in those of the 'Westernised' world. For example, in terms of language - the way of knowing that arguably most shapes our collective identity - there are about 7000 different indigenous languages. That's worth thinking about for a second. We are used to thinking of Europe, a continent of around 730 million people as being linguistically (and culturally) very diverse. Yet only 78 languages are spoken in Europe by groups of more than 120 people. In other words, Europe contains twice as many people, but ten times fewer languages, than indigenous groups worldwide.

To picture this diversity in another way, consider the fact that another characteristic of indigenous societies is that they are very much the product of the environment in which they are located. Think about the number of different landscapes, climates, floras, and faunas on Planet Earth, and you'll gain some idea of the implications of this. So we should be very careful about the question 'what are indigenous societies?' because it is probably even more difficult to answer than 'what are Western societies?' For now, it will be far more profitable to concentrate on the people from which the knowledge comes.

It is partly because of this difficulty that the United Nations stresses that one should 'identify' rather than 'define' indigenous people. The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues presents the following list of characteristics to help us identify indigenous people:

- Self-identification as indigenous peoples at the individual level and accepted by the community as their member

- Historical continuity with pre-colonial and/or pre-settler societies

- Strong link to territories and surrounding natural resources

- Distinct social, economic or political systems

- Distinct language, culture and beliefs

- Form non-dominant groups of society

- Resolve to maintain and reproduce their ancestral environments and systems as distinctive peoples and communities

The key characteristic is the first of these. Martinéz Cobo, the academic who helped the United Nations develop its thinking on indigenous peoples, stated:

" On an individual basis, an indigenous person is one who belongs to these indigenous peoples through self-identification as indigenous (group consciousness) and is recognized and accepted by the group as one of its members (acceptance by the group). This preserves for these communities the sovereign right and power to decide who belongs to them, without external interference. "

Despite what we have already said about indigenous societies being incredibly diverse, there are certain characteristics and outlooks that they often share. The Cherokee economist and founder of First Peoples Worldwide, Rebecca Adamson, lists three interlinked characteristics of indigenous societies:
Community is essential for survival [In indigenous societies...] concern for the greater good and respect for the community are embedded in Indigenous legal, political, social and economic structures. Life is sustained through balance and harmony. [This means indigenous people...] give and take from nature in synchrony with natural cycles, ensuring that our sources of life remain healthy and abundant.Nature is a source of knowledge... Indigenous science and knowledge are based largely on bioindicators, or natural signs.
To these points, we can perhaps add three more. First, is the importance of spoken language, given that most indigenous societies do not have a literary heritage. Second, and overlapping with the first, is the rich artistic tradition that is found within most indigenous societies, such as the visual arts, dance, and song. For most indigenous people, the arts are a form of communication, both between themselves, and with the metaphysical world. Third, is the fact that traditional societies are run along much smaller lines than their industrialized counterparts, partly as a way of avoiding too much impact on the environment around them, partly as a way of ensuring that there is unity in decision making, and that a separate political bureaucracy is not required.

Jared Diamond, the geographer and anthropologist, refers to indigenous societies as 'small-scale', and the fact that indigenous societies can be described as such means some major implications in terms of the knowledge it creates and draws on.

For those of us who come to this theme as 'outsiders', accessing and understanding indigenous ways of thinking presents certain problems. To start with, indigenous societies is probably the most unfamiliar of the five optional TOK themes, and the only one that it is perfectly possible to have no prior experience of. Furthermore, as indigenous societies are so incredibly diverse, it's easy to make over-generalized assertions and judgements, which we must be careful about.

Finally, many indigenous societies have practical difficulties that prevent us from easily obtaining a clear picture of the knowledge that characterizes them. These difficulties include the fact that much indigenous knowledge is based on non-literary sources, which is hard to access, particularly because of how remote many indigenous societies are (indeed, there are a few that still remain untouched). A lot of indigenous societies have either died out, or are on the verge of doing so. These problems can also compound each other - consider, for example, how we investigate the ideas of a society that never wrote anything down, and whose language no one now speaks.

Of course, there is a substantial amount of indigenous culture that is very accessible, and as indigenous peoples are slowly gaining more political rights throughout the world they are forcing the world to take notice of their ideas, and what we can learn about them. However, we do need to take account of the thousands of societies whose knowledge is hard to access.

Human sciences and indigenous peoples have an intimate relationship, as it has traditionally been the role of anthropologists, ethnographers, and sociologists to make the first academic studies of indigenous societies. This usually involves spending at least a few months, but often years studying their way of life. However, it isn't just human scientists who are involved in these studies: experts from other fields are also interested in studying small-scale societies and those societies' relationship with their environment, such as historians and biologists. By 'academic studies' we mean studies that take a scientific approach, involving the investigation of a specific hypothesis, via quantitative data. This leads to results that should be objective and testable, and be possible to replicate.

This all sounds good in theory, and there is no doubt that human scientists have provided superb information and knowledge on many indigenous societies around the world. But there are also various difficulties with this immersive method of gathering indigenous knowledge. First, there is the phenomenon known as the Hawthorne (or Observer) Effect.

This is the way in which observers will affect and alter the object of study, meaning that what they are studying doesn't match up to its ordinary reality. The Hawthorne Effect can be relatively benign, and simply involve those being studied behaving differently around 'strangers'. Of course, even the most expert human scientists cannot know for sure if this is happening, given that they are probably dealing with a society whose 'normal' mode of behaviour they are unfamiliar with.

Second, even trained experts bring with them biases, which act as a paradigm through which they view the indigenous society under observation. These may not be personal biases, but may be imposed upon them by the society and academic institution from which they have come. Whilst we like to think of the academic world as one that used objective methods in order to acquisition knowledge, it is just as prone as any other aspect of society to fashions and trends. These are sometimes intellectual paradigms, made popular by influential academic thinkers, and broader ways of thinking and behaving that affect the whole of society.

Observers who take with them such outlooks will inevitably skew the data and information that they find in order to address such paradigms. One such example is the work done by Margaret Mead in the Pacific Islands, who in the 1920s published Coming of Age in Samoa, one of the most influential anthropological books ever written, based on her work in the South Pacific. Her portrayal of a sexually and socially egalitarian society struck a chord with the early feminist movement, as well as with academics who were keen to promote the idea of nurture rather than nature as being the key component determining human behaviour. However, many people have questioned the extent to which her findings were deliberately (or even subconsciously) designed to fit in with the intellectual zeitgeist of the time.

Cite this page as: Dunn, Michael. Defining indigenous societies. (9th June 2022). https://theoryofknowledge.net/the-tok-course/tok-optional-themes/knowledge-and-indigenous-societies/defining-indigenous-societies/

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Identifying indigenous societies The United Nations estimate that more than 370 million people spread across at least 70 different countries constitute

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I can explain why defining ‘indigenous’ is challenging, and what the ethical consequences of this are

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IS1 Determining identity | Class presentation (25-26)

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CNN article - Fase starts and wrong turns

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CNN article - Fase starts and wrong turns

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The secret to making a scientific discovery | CNN Business

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Scientists spend years in search of answers to the some of the world's biggest breakthroughs. Three eminent professors share how they do it.

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The Conversation - Scientific inspiration

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The Conversation - Scientific inspiration

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I don't know why it took so long to dawn on me - after 20 years of a scientific career - that what we call the "scientific method" really only refers the second half of any scientific story. It describes how we test and refine the ideas and hypotheses we have about nature through the engagement of experiment or observation and theoretical ideas and models.

But something must happen before this. All of this process rests upon the vital, essential, precious ability to conceive of those ideas in the first place. And, sadly, we talk very little about this creative core of science: the imagining of what the unseen structures in the world might be like.

We need to be more open about it. I have been repeatedly saddened by hearing from school students that they were put off science "because there seemed no room there for my own creativity". What on earth have we done to leave this formulaic impression of how science works?

Science and poetry

The 20th century biologist Peter Medawar was one of the few recent writers to discuss the role of creativity in science at all. He claimed that we are quietly embarrassed about it, because the imaginative phase of science possesses no "method" at all. In his 1982 book Pluto's Republic he points out:

The weakness of the hypothetico-deductive system, in so far as it might profess to cover a complete account of the scientific process, lies in its disclaiming any power to explain how hypotheses come into being.

Medawar is equally critical of glib comparisons of scientific creativity to the sources of artistic inspiration. Because whereas the sources of artistic inspiration are often communicated - they "travel" - scientific creativity is very much private. Scientists, he claims, unlike artists, do not share their tentative imaginings or inspired moments, but only the polished results of complete investigations.

The romantic poet William Wordsworth, on the other hand, two centuries ago, foresaw a future in which:

The remotest discoveries of the Chemist, the Botanist, or Mineralogist, will be as proper objects of the Poet's art as any upon which it can be employed, if the time should ever come when these things shall be familiar to us.

Here is the need for ideas to "travel" again - which, if Medawar is correct, they have still failed to do. By and large poets still don't write about science (with some notable exceptions such as R S Thomas). Nor is science "an object of contemplation", as the historian Jacques Barzun put it. Yet the few scientists who have vocalised their experience of formulating new ideas are in no doubt about its contemplative and creative essence. Einstein, in his book with the physicist Leopold Infeld, The Evolution of Physics, wrote:

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

You don't need to be a great scientist to know this. In my own experience I have seen mathematical solutions in dreams (one dream of a mathematical solution even coming to me and independently and identically to a collaborator on the same night), and imagined a specific structure of protein dynamics while sitting on a hillside.

There is a large literature on "creativity" in science, but I have found nothing that really speaks to the lack of discussion of scientific inspiration today or to the pain of lingering experiences in education that set sciences and the arts and humanities in conflicting and opposed camps.

Stories of creativity

So I set off to ask scientists I knew to narrate, not just their research findings, but the pathways by which they got there. As a sort of "control experiment", I did the same with poets, composers and artists.

I read past accounts of creation in mathematics ( Poincaré is very good), novel-writing ( Henry James wrote a book about it), art (from Picasso to my Yorkshire friend, the artist late Graeme Willson), and participated in a two day workshop in Cambridge on creativity with physicists and cosmologists. Philosophy, from medieval to 20th century phenomenology, has quite a lot to add.

From all these tales emerged a different way to think about what science achieves and where it lies in our long human story - as not only a route to knowledge, but also as a contemplative practice that meets a human need, in ways complementary to art or music. Above all I could not deny the extraordinary way that personal stories of creating the new mapped closely onto each other, whether these sprung from an attempt to create a series of mixed-media artworks reflecting the sufferings of war, or the desire to know what astronomical event had unleashed unprecedented X-ray and radio signals.

A common narrative contour of a glimpsed and desired end, a struggle to achieve it, the experience of constraint and dead-end, and even the mysterious "aha" moments that speak of hidden and sub-conscious processes of thought choosing their moments to communicate into our consciousness - all this is a story shared among scientists and artists alike.

In my resulting book - The Poetry and Music of Science - I try to make sense of why science's imaginative and creative core is so hidden, and how to bring it into the light. It's not the book I first imagined - it just wouldn't permit a structure of separate accounts of scientific and artistic creativity. Their entanglements run too deep for that.

Instead there emerged three "modes" of imagination that both science and art engage: the visual, the textual and the abstract. We think in pictures, in words, and in the abstract forms that we call mathematics and music. It has become increasingly obvious to me that the "two cultures" division between the humanities and sciences is an artificial invention of the late 19th century. Perhaps the best way to address this is simply to ignore it, and start talking to one another more.

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We talk about artistic inspiration all the time - but scientific inspiration is a thing too

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We talk about artistic inspiration all the time - but science demands inspiration too.

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Stuart Firestein: The pursuit of ignorance | TED Talk

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What does real scientific work look like? As neuroscientist Stuart Firestein jokes: It looks a lot less like the scientific method and a lot more like “farting around ... in the dark.” In this witty talk, Firestein gets to the heart of science as it is really practiced and suggests that we should value what we don’t know -- or “high-quality ignorance” -- just as much as what we know.

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I can offer a more sophisticated statement than “new scientific knowledge is created via the scientific method”

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NS3 False starts and wrong turns | Class presentation (25-26)

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HS4 Ice cream and shark attacks | Gaming out the case-studies document 

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Correlation does not imply causation - video (longer version)

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Correlation does not imply causation - video (longer version)

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Why Ice Cream Is Linked to Shark Attacks – Correlation/Causation – The Dr. Data Show

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Correlation does not imply causation -  video (shorter version)

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Correlation does not imply causation -  video (shorter version)

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Why eating ice cream is linked to shark attacks

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Why are soda and ice cream each linked to violence? This article delivers the final word on what people mean by “correlation does not imply causation.”

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i Weiwei's studio can be found behind unmarked, black metal doors in a grand square in the old east Berlin. You immediately descend two flights of very steep stone stairs before emerging, blinking for light, into a vast, brick-lined cavern that has the proportions of a church. The temperature drops a few degrees. The space was originally, back in the mid-19th century, the cooling warehouses for the Bavarian brewer Joseph Pfeffer. But, since Ai fled China five years ago, this has been his main place of work - and, given that the 62-year-old artist and activist is almost always working, more besides.

"When I'm here, it's like my home," says Ai, who wears a blue hoodie and comfortable shoes, his beard less unruly than it appears in photographs. " Like my home," he clarifies. "I've never had a home. In China, my studio was often destroyed. So for me, it's a shelter - a shelter not so different from refugees in the camps that gradually build up. I can leave, of course, but since 2015, I have stayed here, never had a holiday or weekends. I'm working all the time." His face crinkles into a smile: "I love work."

Ai's output is prolific and diverse. In 2008, he was the artistic consultant for the Olympic Stadium in Beijing, the Bird's Nest. Two years later, he filled the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern with 100m handmade and painted porcelain sunflower seeds. Early in his career, he made a photo series of himself dropping a splendid, 2,000-year-old Han dynasty urn. Recently, he has created several powerful works - installations, video and a documentary - on the refugee crisis. War and its fallout is also the subject of his latest work, History of Bombs.

In China they say, you're born as a nude person, you die as a nude person. You should understand both ends

Until the coronavirus outbreak, Ai's design - a grid of 50 explosive devices from a 1911 grenade to a 2019 guided nuclear missile - was due to cover the floor of the Imperial War Museum London's vast atrium, underneath the suspended Spitfire and Harrier jet, leading visitors to the spring exhibition, Refugees: Forced to Flee.

Now the exhibition is postponed and Ai says when contacted last week: "Cultural institutions are probably the last to be damaged, but the first to show how severely this can affect our understanding about art and culture, which reflect tragic human moments like this. It is very hard to predict the future, but it seems like the situation is not going to be easily resolved and will have a strong impact. All the factors that allowed for this incident still remain the same - this could happen again - and a more thoughtful response in terms of social structure and the philosophical understanding of this situation is required."

Ai's notoriety now of course reaches far beyond the art world. He took the 99-year lease on his Berlin studio in 2010 when he was starting to worry about his safety - his freedom - in China. He was right to be concerned: in April 2011, he was arrested and jailed for 81 days on insubstantial charges. His passport was confiscated and only returned to him in 2015, at which point he came to Germany.

"When a friend showed me the space, it was in a very bad condition," Ai recalls. "That's why nobody wanted it: it's dark, it's wet, it's cold. There's no light down here. So I said: 'I want it.' He was surprised and said: 'Why do you want it?' And I said: 'Because there are so many problems, and I like to solve problems!'"

Before Ai was an artist, he was an architect, and it shows. The studio now has natural light from goodness knows where, and is clinically clean and dry. For the most part, anyway. A while back, he discovered water dripping from the ceiling, so he went to see his upstairs neighbour, the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, about it. "Olafur is my dear friend, but we don't see each other very often, maybe once every three months," says Ai. "So I said: 'Olafur, it's leaking!' And he said: 'Oh, I'm sorry.' And I said: 'No, don't worry, I'll call it a waterfall and when you have the chance, come down to sign it!'"

Those who follow Ai's work and pronouncements might be surprised to learn that he still has a base in Berlin. At the end of last year, he moved with his partner and 10-year-old son to Cambridge. In January, he gave an interview to the Guardian in which he was so excoriating about life in Germany that you might imagine that he would never set foot in the country again. Germans, he said, "deeply don't like foreigners". He went even further: nazism - by his definition, as an ideology that dismisses alternative viewpoints - "perfectly exists in German daily life today".

What has been the reaction to these comments in Germany? "When I chat like this, it is only because journalists ask me and I have to answer," says Ai. "The German response was very heavy, very dark - a form of 'love it or leave it', or 'go back to China' . Or the more intellectual was: 'Oh, it's only a few taxi drivers.' And I said, 'Yes, but that is a long ride.'"

Ai guffaws, but he's totally serious. He has to keep his studio in Berlin for now, but would like to relocate. "I know I would never get a place like this, but so what?" he says. "Many people have to leave their nation barehanded, and maybe before they used to have a palace. In China they say, you're born as a nude person, you die as a nude person. You should understand both ends."

One of the differences Ai sees between the UK and Germany is the engagement with his work and his opinions. He says that he has done more interviews in one week with the British media than in five years with German outlets. "The Hong Kong riots, the corona situation - I thought the German press would ask what we think about it, right?" he says. "I'm not blaming them or asking for this, but it makes me feel kind of like I'm in China, because my name cannot be written."

On the evidence of this feature, a You Ask the Questions special, there is certainly an intense fascination with Ai in Britain (there are also at least a couple of questions from Germany, and submissions from all over the world). The many hundreds of inquiries ranged from his early life (Ai's father Ai Qing was a notable poet who was ostracised for criticising the Maoist regime; the family lived in a cave for five years and his father was made to clean the village toilet) to his opinions on music and food (he's obsessed with one, not the other). At one point Ai stops me mid-sentence and marvels: "You have important questions from a lot of powerful people! Amazing!"

Subject to any further disruption due to coronavirus, IWM plans to open History of Bombs this summer at IWM London as part of IWM's Refugees season.

You have moved to the UK just as we leave the European Union. What does the idea of the nation state mean to you?
If you take a historical view, our map is always changing. It continues to evolve. That might be a king's decision or the people's decision in a democracy. I don't think Brexit is a problem. I've asked many people and Britain is Britain. It has problems, but it's still there and this doesn't add more problems. So it's a time for people to rethink what Britain is and how to survive.

What is the most satisfying thing to you about being an artist?
To not even think that I am an artist has been very satisfying for my work.

In free societies, people often have the romantic feeling that better art is produced in circumstances of hardship. What would you say to that?
This is a tricky question. I would say that many bad artworks have come from circumstances of hardship. But hardship can also be defined as a long period of mental and intellectual struggle.

Marcel Duchamp's work, The Large Glass [also known as The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even] looks very casual. Duchamp had the lightest attitude towards art but his mindset was formed over a long time, taking in poetry, French literature, the attitudes of that generation, Dadaism and surrealism. The Large Glass speaks of all of that.

If artists aren't active in the political space, do you think that they are essentially supporting the status quo?
An artist must also be an activist - aesthetically, morally, or philosophically. That doesn't mean they have to demonstrate in street protests, but rather deal with these issues through a so-called artistic language. Without that kind of consciousness - to be blind to human struggle - one cannot even be called an artist.

What is your unrealised project?
That will be death. In my life I have gone through pretty much every single trauma: communism, postmodernism, post-capitalism and globalisation, but the only project I think everyone realises is death. I know nothing about death. I haven't met anybody who has come back to tell me their experience. So I'm waiting for the moment and it will come sooner or later.

I'm happy with the work I've done, even though I have done so little. Often in life you don't get the chance to do what you want. For me, that period lasted almost 45 years: I either didn't know what I wanted to do or I knew what I wanted but I didn't get the chance to do it. But since 2005, when I touched a computer for the first time and started to learn how to type, I began working on the internet and have been reborn. So in the past 15 years, I basically did everything and I'm pretty satisfied. If I have to die now, I have no regrets.

Given you've designed buildings as well as installed art in a whole variety of different spaces, what can artists and architects learn from each other?
This is a bit technical, but I think artists and architects are the same profession, if they're good ones. Even doctors or politicians, they should have vision and they should understand human behaviour and try to offer possibilities for surviving intellectually or physically.

How can art help the plight of refugees?
Art helps human consciousness, art is about individuals' emotions or ideas or concepts relating to a larger cultural definition of who we are. And art can break boundaries: there's no "refugees" or other names, even "terrorists", we're all human. Art tries to illustrate or explain the situation we are in. So in that sense art is dangerous because art doesn't accept any kind of regulation or any kind of principle; instead you have to go to an unknown area. Art helps our human understanding of our situation. Words like "refugee" and "terrorist" are a simplification and those words destroy the humanity.

After creating so many works of art that give voice to the voiceless across the world, I wonder what are the emotions that you find easier to think, write or express in Chinese and what are the emotions you find easier to think, write or express in English? I am curious what is your relationship with each language, and how do they differ, if at all, emotionally.
For Chinese readers, the sensitivity and storytelling about common feelings and people's everyday behaviour are the most effective. For western readers, since I was not raised in the west, my arguments are more about matters of ethics and philosophy. Rationality is easier for any audience to understand.

What steps do you think can we take to persuade European public opinion to be more sympathetic to taking in refugees, especially in Britain?
It's not possible to persuade anybody. You can only warn people what the consequences will be of not doing it. The idea of helping the unfortunate has always existed in most religionsIt's easy to understand but I don't think people will do it in practice. So, in my work, I'd rather warn about wh at will happen if we are not more sympathetic towards refugees. And that's what I'm doing.

Has becoming a parent had an impact on your art?
Lorraine Pink, Australia
Oh yes, definitely it helps me. Whatever I did before is like half of the circle; becoming a parent makes the circle full. So it's very important for me, even if I understand very little about doing it. But still, it's a gift, so you accept that gift. Also, it's only when you become a parent you understand your own parents. That's important, too.

Does music inspire you, and if so what do you listen to?
Anonymous, Japan
Not at all! I wouldn't say that I don't like music, but I have never really turned on music in my life. I have good equipment, I have a lot of musician friends and I have perfect understanding of music. I can analyse music with my musician friends and conductors and they say: "You understand music so well!" But it's like a parallel world in which I'm an alien. When I listen to it, I can rationalise happy emotions, but I don't like music. I like silence. No sound at all. Maybe I belong to death.

Last year you bought 30 tons of buttons from A Brown & Co when the business closed. What plans do you have for them?
Bill Brown, USA
What a pain! We have started to analyse and measure and categorise them. We're still working on that. At the moment, we don't have a plan for them. We never do anything without totally understanding the situation, or at least thinking that we totally understand the situation. We want to find joy, then we can turn it into some other kind of joy.

What I cook depends on what's there when I open the refrigerator. I always find something, but my cooking secret is that I cannot cook the same dish twice. I automatically avoid cooking anything the same. It doesn't matter if it is such a good dish: "Can you redo it?" No, not possible. I see it as art. And I'm not the kind of artist that repeats the same work for 20 years.

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Ai Weiwei: 'An artist must be an activist'

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i Weiwei's studio can be found behind unmarked, black metal doors in a grand square in the old east Berlin. You immediately descend two flights of very steep stone stairs before emerging, blinking for light, into a vast, brick-lined cavern that has the proportions of a church. The temperature drops a few degrees.

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A Cambridge professor on how to stop being so easily manipulated by misleading statistics

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“I happily ate my carcinogen this morning.”

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How statistics can be misleading - Mark Liddell

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The Truth About Algorithms | Cathy O'Neil

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Math is the hidden secret to understanding the world | Roger Antonsen

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Aeon article on mathematics & moral problems

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Aeon article on mathematics & moral problems

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How to solve moral problems with formal logic and probability | Aeon Essays

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Subjecting the problems of ethics to the cool quantifications of logic and probability can help us to be better people

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MA5 LIES, DAMNED LIES, AND STATISTICS | 25-26

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MA5 LIES, DAMNED LIES, AND STATISTICS | 25-26

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I can discuss the relationship between mathematics and ethics, and evaluate whether it has an inherent moral character

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MA5 Lies, damned lies, and statistics | Class presentation (25-26)

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I can explain the term “correlation does not imply causation”, and discuss the consequences of not grasping its importance

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HS4 Ice cream and shark attacks | Class presentation (25-26)

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Confederate statue that prompted Charlottesville rally must stay, judge rules

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A Virginia judge has blocked the city of Charlottesville’s effort to remove the Confederate statue that sparked a deadly white nationalist rally.

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Video on the United Daughters of the Confederacy

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Video on the United Daughters of the Confederacy

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How Southern socialites rewrote Civil War history

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Is History Written by the Winners? article

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Is History Written by the Winners? article

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Is History Written by the Winners? | Maiyro

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Maiyro is a platform where writers create publications, take part in discussions, build their professional profiles, and engage in writing opportunities. We value supportive and constructive dialogue in the pursuit of great publications and career growth for all members. The ecosystem spans from beginner to advanced writers, and all are welcome to find their place within our community.

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I can explain why the statement ‘history is written by the victors’ can be deeply misleading

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HI3 Hijacking history | Class presentation (25-26)

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I can offer an opinion on whether it is an artist’s duty to confront moral issues in their work

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AR5 Disturbing the comfortable | Class presentation (24-25)

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What the Internet (and Selfies) Reveal About Our Self-Obsession   | Big Think.

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I understand how TOK will help me to become an authentic critical thinker and help me to exit my echo chamber

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INTRO 1 Exiting our echo chambers | Class presentation (25-26)

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Our classroom-ready Classic lessons are designed for teachers who are looking to deliver the course directly via the themes and areas of knowledge, with each one further subdivided into the four elements of the knowledge framework (the IB's suggestion for structuring the course) - Nature & scope, Perspectives, Method & tools, and Ethics.

Every lesson presentation has been fully updated for the 2025-26 academic year, with a fresh new design, learning activities based on the latest media sources, ideas from the inspiring and influential thinkers, suggestions for AI-exploration, links to the TOK exhibition, and indications of how they interlink to our other resources.

Access to the Classic TOK course is via our Faculty membership. Join us in seconds HERE.

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Understanding unconscious bias | The Royal Society

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KK4 Scouts and soldiers | Research sheet (2025-26)

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Rationality in Action: Look at a Problem as an Outsider

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I can discuss a range of strategies that could be used to solve the problems associated with unconscious bias

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KK4 Scouts and soldiers | Class presentation (2025-26)

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What to trust in a "post-truth" world | Alex Edmans